GoPro should enter the drone market.
DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
551–560 of 742 posts
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
The market will open up for new companies after the China ban takes effect. Right now they can't compete.
That's just an excuse, after 10 years failing to compete. Western drone companies have received billions in investments to make competing drones, but repeatedly fail, for some reason. Western company can't compete, but that's on them. Banning DJI won't change anything, Western companies have to get their act together.
Frankly, the DoD likely spent something like 5-8 trillion dollars over the last 10 years.
If we establish that drone manufacturing is a matter of national security, it seems critically important to understand why domestic production keeps failing and fix those problems rather than just giving up.
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I don't think this is the reason, I think it's more that they're just too lazy to jump through the approval and maintenance hoops that come with an app store, especially because their home market (China) doesn't even use the Play Store. The iOS version of their app is Apple-approved and present in the…
>I don't think they're explicitly a CCP data-collection front In China you cannot not be explicitly a CCP data-collection front. China doesn't bring evidence to a judge in order to get a subpoena for data. They just go to DJI an get it. DJI has zero legal recourse if the CCP wants access to all DJI's stored data. Doesn't matter where that data is stored. Same thing for tiktok and why legislators are killing that too.…
> In China you cannot not be explicitly a CCP data-collection front
Unintelligible.
Rewrite as “in China it’s very hard to avoid turning over data to the CCP.”
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#554I don't trust DJI. I was looking to replace my GoPro with the DJI Action, but their app was not on the Play-store. It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I believe I saw a site that decompiled their app and found a number of worrisome things.
> It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I don't think this is the reason, I think it's more that they're just too lazy to jump through the approval and maintenance hoops that come with an app store, especially because their home market (China) doesn't even use the Play Store. The iOS version of their app is Apple-approved and present in the…
I feel like you're underestimating the average large state actor's ability to employ subtlety when they really care about a long-term foreign intelligence operation.
For example, it doesn't have to be the case that DJI has ever been told to collect data for the CCP. That would be a big OPSEC violation — as soon as anyone in the foreign media learned of it, DJI would be as dead as Huawei or Tiktok.
Instead, it could just as well be that the CCP have left DJI themselves untouched, but have instead manipulated market conditions around them: arranging it so that DJI "just seems to never be able to" hire any security experts; and so that DJI (and everyone else) hire product managers from a pool trained on CCP-sponsored university programs and industry media sources, that have those product managers parroting "useful" beliefs like "more analytics is always better."
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most hardware has no reason to require direct internet access or an account with the manufacturer to work. If some device requires internet access, then it cannot be trusted to not transmit personal data, therefore it should be possible to replace the software on that device, so that something that is trusted by the consumer can be installed. While DJI here might create good hardware, their internet and account requi…
While I agree with you, I doubt banning Chinese tech will remedy this problem. My experience is that American brands are much, much more aggressive about making you connect to the internet, install our apps, create an account, subscribe to our newsletter etc. Look at the difference between iRobot and Chinese robot vacuums on Amazon - the difference is night and day.
And yet the US government isn't worried about a US company leaking photos of sensitive information to the US government.
The same cannot be said of the Chinese government who may be happy to get extensive drone footage of everyday US infrastructure which can be used in a future war.
Meanwhile, China won't even let Google provide a valid map of the country... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Google_Maps_in_Chi...
But tell us all more about how we should be more concerned about a US company requiring an internet login.
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#556DJI is, by far, the best drone equipment brand for photography, industrial usage, etc. It's disheartening to witness the US embracing protectionism for high-tech. If the United States does this, it might as well join the European Union's decadence in killing tech startups by stifling the competitiveness of their market...
Most hardware has no reason to require direct internet access or an account with the manufacturer to work. If some device requires internet access, then it cannot be trusted to not transmit personal data, therefore it should be possible to replace the software on that device, so that something that is trusted by the consumer can be installed. While DJI here might create good hardware, their internet and account requi…
Back before the war it was possible to obtain hacked DJI ROMs from the Russians that disabled all of these connections and restrictions including no-fly zones.
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does poke a hole through the concept of markets that are free of government intervention lead to cheaper goods. I doubt these subsidies don’t further government revenue in some way, so is the Chinese government a better capital allocator than the free market? They’ve made bets on solar, EVs, battery tech, and pretty much everything related to advanced manufacturing bar the latest CPU lithography, and right now the…
The Chinese government is playing the "kill competitors with price cuts" game on the national level by not floating their currency AND subsidizing their major international tech. Eventually someone will foot this bill. They hope the marbles they gain will be worth the cost.
Nothing stopping the US government making big bets of its own. But perhaps it has in military tech. At any rate, the free market ideal has been proven as fallible as any ideal in practice
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to see a requirement that any drone sold in (or imported to) the US (or EU) has to be flashable - without having to desolder components, or any other such nonsense. Press some buttons and load new software. An accompanying requirement would be to document interfaces to hardware subsystems (chip spec sheets would suffice). With drones, the potential for mischief is too great to let malware be smuggled in.…
Impossible, especially for drones, because it would allow people to trivially flash firmware to drones which can bypass restrictions like no-fly zones and reporting requirements which allow the FAA or other LE to answer questions like "who was flying a drone playing chicken with a low-flying Cessna"
Err, while it takes a little more technical know-how and some electronics experience, this already exists and is still extremely easy to do..
or
https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav
or
among others
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#559I don't trust DJI. I was looking to replace my GoPro with the DJI Action, but their app was not on the Play-store. It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I believe I saw a site that decompiled their app and found a number of worrisome things.
Long ago I bought a DJI mavic. I generally don't use apps for any stuff.
I couldn't fly it with the joystick controller that came with it. It said "see app" or something on the controller. It was really annoying but I sent it back. A cursory web search said it was sending all kinds of location/flight information/etc back to dji continuously.
I thought there would be outrage, but not much.
I think it is sort of annoying that they are going after DJI specifically.
I think congress should be going after device/app privacy itself for all devices/apps in a more fundamental way.
Re: DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
To start: I do not trust the CCP, but my trust in the American legal system has been waning. What's the legal recourse for a US Citizen served with a dodgy FISA-related subpoena/warrant? Or if a government agency wants to purchase tracking data that includes my phone from a data collection agency? Say the state of Texas purchases geotracking data for app users who cross state lines.
Apple famously told the FBI to go pound sand when asked to help access an iPhone in an actual terrorism case (i.e. it wasn't about going after dissidents or journalists or anything), even though such help was definitely within Apple's technical power. Now, while admitting that I am no way claiming the US is perfect, does anyone actually think something even remotely similar would ever happen between a Chinese company…
> Now, while admitting that I am no way claiming the US is perfect, does anyone actually think something even remotely similar would ever happen between a Chinese company and the Chinese government?
Yes. We've seen the back and forth with e.g. Jack Ma. It doesn't happen as publicly because it's not such good marketing in China, but of course it happens.